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AN OLD SWEET 
'HEAKrOFMINE 



Bji 



JAMES WHITCQMB 
RILEY 




INDIANAPOLIS. 



THE BOBBS-MERRILL^ 
COMPANY: PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1888— 1899 — 1902— 1916 
James Whitcomb Riley 






48 65 55 

■MG 27 1942 



CHARLES FRANCIS PRE88 
NEW YORK 



INSCRIBED 

To GEORGE C. HITT 

The beginning of whose steadfast friendship was 
marked by the first publication of these verses 
which now, expanded by writer, honored by 
publisher and masterfully graced by artist, seem 
to be a worthier symbol of the author's grate- 
ful and affectionate regard for his earliest friend. 



"Proem 

The ordered intermingling 

of the real and the dream, — 
77?^ mill above the river, 

and the mist above the stream; 
The life of ceaseless labor, 

brave with song and cheery call-^ 
The radiant skies of evening, 

with its rainbow o'er us all. 



AN Old Sweetheart of 
Mine! — Is this 
her presence here with me, 
Or but a vain creation of 

a lover's memory? — 
A fair, illusive vision 

that would vanish into air 
Dared I even touch the silence 
with the whisper of a prayer? 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



NAY, let me then believe in ail 
the blended false and true — 
The semblance of the old love 

and the substance of the new, — 
The then of changeless sunny days- 

the now of shower and shine — 
But Love forever smiling — 
as that old sweetheart of mine. 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



THIS ever-restful sense of home^ 
though shouts ring in the hall, — 
The easy-chair— the old bookshelves 

and prints along the wall; 
The rare Hahanas in their box, 
or gaunt churchwarden - stem 
That often wags, above the jar, 
derisively at them. 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



As one who cons at evening 
. o'er an album, all alone, 
And muses on the faces 

of the friends that he has known, 
So I turn the leaves of fancy, 

till, in shadowy design, 
I find the smiling features of 
An old sweetheart of mine. 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



THE lamplight seems to glimmer 
with a flicker of surprise, 
As I turn it low— to rest me 
of the dazzle in my eyes, 
And light my pipe in silence, 

save a sigh that seems to yoke 
Its fate with my tobacco 
and to vanish with the smoke. 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



1 












__ 












"T^IS 2Ljragrant retrospection, — 
1 for the loving thoughts that start 
Into being are like perfume 

from the blossom of the heart; 
And to dream the old dreams over 

is a luxury divine — 
When my truant fancies wander 
with that old sweetheart of mine. 

AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 








T~ 




— 








6 







THOUGH I hear 
beneath my study, 
like a fluttering of wings, 
The voices of my children 

and the mother as she sings — 
I feel no twinge of conscience 

to deny me any theme 
When Care has cast her anchor 
in the harbor of a dream— 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



IN fact, to speak in earnest, 
I believe it adds a charm 
To spice the good a trifle 

with a little dust of harm, — 
For 1 find an extra flavor 

in Memory's mellow wine 
That makes me drink the deeper 
to that old sweetheart of mine. 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



OCHILDHOOD-days 
enchanted! 
O the magic of the Spring!—- 
With all green boughs 

to blossom white, 
and all bluebirds to sing! 
When all the air, to toss and quaff, 

made life a jubilee 
And changed the children's song 
and laugh to shrieks of ecstasy. 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



WITH eyes half closed 
in clouds that ooze 
from lips that taste, as well, 
The peppermint and cinnamon, 

I hear the old School-bell, 
And from "Recess" romp in again, 
from ''Blackman's" broken line, 
To smile — behind my ** lesson", 
at that old sweetheart of mine. 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



10 



A FACE of lily-beauty, 
with a form of airy grace, 
Floats out of my tobacco 

as the ** Genii" from the vase; 
And I thrill beneath the glances 

of a pair of azure eyes 
As glowing as the summer 
and as tender as the skies. 






i-^nA 



AiN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



11 



I CAN see the pink sunbonnet 
and the little, checkered dress 
She wore when first 1 kissed her— 

and she answered the caress 
With the written declaration that, 

*'As surely as the vine 
Grew 'round the stump/' 

she loved me — 
that old sweetheart of mine. 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



18 



AGAIN I make her presents, 
in a really helpless way, — 
The big ^'Rhode Island Greening"- 
( I was hungry too, that day!)— 
But I follow her from Spelling, 

with her hand behind her — so— 
And I slip the apple in it— 

and the Teacher doesn't know! 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



IS 













' 1 




1 


.-» 




T GIVE my treasures to her— all,— 
1 my pencil — blue-and-red; — 
And, if little girls played marbles, 

mine should all be hers, instead!— 
But she gave me her photograph, 

and printed "Ever Thine" 
Across the back — in blue-and-red— 

that old sweetheart of mine! 

AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 








— 




^-" 








ih 







AND again 1 feel the pressure 
of her slender little hand, 
As we used to talk together 

of the future we had planned,— 
When 1 should be a poet, 

and with nothing else to do 
But write the tender verses 
that she set the music to . . . 



^ 









?,-p. 



AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



15 



























"1 I /"HEN we should live together 
VV in a cozy little cot 
Hid in a nest of roses, 

with a fairy garden-spot, 
Where the vines were ever fruited 

and the weather ever fine, 
And the birds were ever singing 

for that old sweetheart of mine . . . 

AiN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 








' 












16 




■ i 



WHEN 1 should be her lover 
forever and a day, 
And she my faithful sweetheart 
till the golden hair was gray; 
And we should be so happy 

that when either's lips were dumb 
They would not smile in Heaven 
till the other's kiss had come. 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



17 



BUT, ah! my dream is broken 
by a step upon the stair, 
And the door is softly opened, 

and — my wife is standing there: 
Yet with eagerness and rapture 

all my visions I resign, — 
To greet the living presence 
of that old sweetheart of mine. 




AN OLD SWEETHEART 
OF MINE 



18 



